Saturday, November 10, 2012

Whip Whitaker (yes, you heard me) (played by Denzel W) is a pilot with problems. First off, he's had a bad day after a hard night because his plane almost blows up, and he does a miraculous job of landing it and not killing most of the souls onboard. (as an aside, I love the airline industry for referring to passengers as souls). Anyhoo, we know Whip likes the sweet nectar and the booger sugar because the film opens with him partaking. He's also partaking one of the female flight attendants, and that is important later on- so pay attention. After the crash, we see the incredible disintegration of an alcoholic- we are given flashes into his sadly destroyed personal life and his inability to give up the demons. It is a painful and sorrowful film in so many ways- a cautionary tale that is really not far from the slow slide into alcoholism that becomes a full blown disaster for some. Denzel Washington does such a good job in every role he plays- and I love that Don Cheadle was cast in a role that the director said "get me a Don Cheadle type" and they went out and got the real Don Cheadle. Nice. John Goodman plays the aging hippie drug supplier in what is such a throwaway parody of some of his other work that it seems unnecessary. The airplane footage is so realistic that it makes you sort of queasy. This is a very, very, very good movie. It's not about the airplane though. It's about the sad desperation of alcoholism.

This animated 3D color explosion is about a vintage (can I use that word for 20 years ago?) video game character named Wreck It Ralph. Because he wrecks things. In a computer game. What is really fun is the cast of characters because they are familiar to anyone 25 or older and the parents who put the quarters on the console for anyone who is 25 or older. Even one of the pac man ghosts is cutely portrayed. Ralph gets tired of being excluded from the after hours socializing of his video game folks, and he goes on a video-gameland adventure. This movie wouldn't be nostalgic for kids, but they won't care. The WORST and I mean the ABSOLUTE WORST thing about it is the continually IRRITATING voice work of Sarah Silverman as Vanellope von Schweetz- a little outcast character who runs the entire second half of the movie. It is so FAKE-and so contrived and so annoying. There are so many talented kids in Hollywood who do voice work- why some idiot chose to have the cloying little girl version of Sarah Silverman, I do not know. (I can guess but that's an adult topic). I'd assume little kids would be even more irritated by it because they've never heard a kid talk like that! But aside from that problem, this is a cute and fun film.